Hope
by fjun
Summary: Adrift in Slipspace, hoping to get out Master Chief goes to cryo sleep, while Cortana keeps vigil. When, or where are they going to get out of the everlasting blackness?
1. Heroes tales

_Halo belongs to Bungie & 343. Mass Effect belongs to Bioware. Only this story is mine._

_Enjoy!_

_Edit: Changes to format & spelling._

* * *

**Installation 00, the Ark**

_"Gun it Chief! Jump! Right into the hangar!"_ She screamed within his head. He complied.

With neck-breaking speed the battered warthog soared through air, right into the Forward Unto Dawn's narrow hangar. Crashing down onto the hangar's floor and flipping over twice, the now demolished warthog, came upturned to halt. Seemingly unfazed Chief crawled out from beneath the military vehicle, looking out for the Arbiter. Detecting him to his right, several feet away of his own position, nearby a scorpion battle tank. There was a moment of safety, barely enough to breath through, but it wasn't meant to last. As usual.

Without warning the Dawn suddenly shifted to the right, it's momentum letting the warthog slide over the metal floor towards the Spartan. Bringing his left hand up in time he stopped the several ton heavy vehicle and pushed it out of his way. Propping himself up, he hastened over the warthog just in time to witness the scorpion tank crashing directly into an exit out of the hangar. That fact alone wouldn't have caused the second long delay of looking at the crash, but the fact that the tank had undoubtedly moved in direction, as well as beyond the former position of the Arbiter proofed enough to cause this reaction from the battle-harded human.

His concern for the alien warrior rendered unnecessary, for but an eye blink later both Shangheili and Human looked each other mutually into their pair of eyes. Yellow and brown met intensively. A nod from each specimen, and they both went after their respective task. Thel 'Vadam raced off towards the spaceship's bridge, while John reached the hangar's holo projector, plugged Cortana out of his neural interface and into the projector's slot. Her sleek, violet holographic image emerged. _"Hang on."_ And hang on he did. At once she powered up the Dawn's engines and began to navigate the ship away from the ark. Unfortunately the Dawn's velocity was some seconds later even to much for the Spartan's enhanced muscles and his hands lost grip of the holo tank.

A dreadful, female scream. _"Chief!"_

He uncontrollably spinned through the decreasing air oft he hangar, bouncing off the floor, oblivious of up and down. However, as a Spartan, he was trained considering every possibly occurring scenario. Therefore he was able to efficiently get hold on a hollow in the hangars base. Even the scenario of a 66 ton battletank falling at you. Impossible to see with the naked eye, Chief evaded the falling, metal beast by lying flat, nearly imprinting himself on the hangar's surface. Climbing the hollows coming before, back toward the holo tank was, after all, easy.

At maximum pace the Dawn urged away from the meanwhile imploding, unfinished Halo construct and towards an immense splispace portal.

_"If we don't make it…"_ Cortana quizzically questioned, once she was again connected with John's neural interface, but was calmly, yet encouragingly interrupted by him.

_"We'll make it."_ A pause.

_"It's been an honour, serving with you John."_ They both relaxed, body as well as mind and waited.

Waited.

After a millisecond lasting flash, the space vessel was gone into the unfathomable depths of space.

* * *

**Geth Space Station**

_"Light it up!"_

Simultaneously four firearms open fire, nothing but wrecking the Geth Juggernaut, standing in her team's way, beyond help and repair.

_'Argh, for the love of god, why do they always have to screech that way?'_

Though she knew such thoughts would not help her team nor herself, she just wasn't able to not think of it.

_"Grunt, up front. Legion, cover fire. Jack. Everything behind us. Tear it apart!"_

_"Battlemaster."_ Grunted the krogan supersoldier.

_"Affirmative."_ A synthetic acknowledgement.

_"Gee."_ came as delighted, girlish reply.

"Lets move, people, time's running low."

As one, they began to move through the corridor towards their exit point. An airlock in the hull of a heretic geth station, infiltrated by an special operations team. Sarah checked the mission timer on her Heads-Up-Display.

_'1 minute, 48 seconds.'_

Once Grunt stomped around the corner to their left, bullets started whizzing through the corridor. Immediately the fire was returned by the krogan youngling and the closest geth's chest exploded after a direct hit out of the krogans shotgun, a claymore. He pumped the shotgun, letting the heatsink escape and charged with a battlecry, head on into the next drone taking it apart. Meanwhile the rest of the team was around, opened fire and peppered the remaining geth drones with bullets.

"_Forward!_" she cried, over the last exchanged shots.

_'1 minute, 17 seconds.'_

Around the next corner. More geth, as usual. After sighting a Geth Prime, she roared out of the top of her lungs.

"Take cover!"

Sarah found herself right next to her krogan crewmember, feeling the high-velocity projectiles hitting the metal barrier she leaned on. With a tremendous crack, whose origin could only be Legion's Anti-Material Rifle, she heard one geth body thump down on the cold surface. Her head shortly sticking out of cover, she analysed her surroundings, imprinting the position of her enemys, noticing the airlock at the end oft he corridor. A plan formed in her mind.

_"Grunt, left side! Pinn 'em down. Jack, Shockwave, head on and hit them hard! Legion, cover me. Wait for my command"_ Sarah barked.

Meanwhile she perceived the adrenaline rushing into her bloodstream, everything slowed down, her breathing became steady, her body relaxed. Then she tensed every muscle in her body, ready to strike, with a commanding, yet calm,

_"Now."_, she sprang into action.

Her green eyes watched as mostly all geth were stunned by Jack's Shockwave, a geth to here right unfazed by the biotic attack cracked open after Legion deemed it as threat to her, left she saw two drones suppress by Grunt's rapid firing Assault Rifle. All of this she observed in a small amount of heartbeats, as her body got up and began to strode forward, her M-96 Mattock Assault Rifle pressed to her right shoulder she started to pick targets. Disruptor Rounds tore through geth like a hot knife through butter. One Shot. One drone dead. Two shots. A Juggernaut down. Two more shots. Two more drones dropped. At last only a Geth Prime was still standing, just recovering from the convict's biotic shockwave, Sarah Shepard unleashed her last ten bullets into the Prime, vandalizing it completely.

Time began to slow down, her heart returned to beat at normal rate, she felt exhausted. She checked her Heads-Up-Display.

_'32 seconds.'_

"Let's check in home guys, before this station blows itself to hell." Shepard called out to them, a lopsided grin beaming up on her face, while opening the airlock and revealing the Kodiak Shuttle in front of it. Every crewmembers inside, the Kodiak began to speed up towards the nearby, opening hangar bay of the Normandy.

_'14 seconds.'_

Sarah opened the hatch before they even touched down inside the hangar. Jumping out, sprinting for the elevator, while screaming. _„EDI, get me Joker!" „Ready, Commander."_

_'11 seconds.'_

_"The Commander wants to speak with you, Mr. Moreau."_

_"Roge.." _Was all he could bring out.

_„Get us out of here, Joker, now!"_

_"On it!"_ With that he accelerated his sleek, beautiful spaceship, the Normandy SR2, to full speed, whilst he launched the FTL drive.

After a millisecond lasting flash, the space vessel was gone into the unfathomable depths of space.

* * *

_Author's notes:_

_So guys, this is my first published english fanfiction. Please, read, review and give me some notes. I have actually no clue how my writing feels to read for others. So I would very much appreciate it if you could criticize my overall writing and tell me how it's feeling while reading._

_I know it's pretty short, but it's just for a start and getting some critics in._

_Thanks,_  
_fjun_


	2. Adrift

_Halo belongs to Bungie & 343. Mass Effect belongs to Bioware. Only this story is mine._

_Enjoy!_

_Edit: Changes to format & spelling._

* * *

**UNSC Forward Unto Dawn**

A millisecond long flash. Then nothing, but blackness.

A familiar voice.

_"Chief? Can you hear me?"_

In response, Chief turned on his helmet's headlights, illuminating the darkness around him.

_"I thought I'd lost you too."_ Cortana sighed with relief.

Master Chief expertly analysed the interior of the Forward Unto Dawn, or rather what was left. He noted that, from the way he and various debris were floating, that artificial gravity was offline. He looked to his left and knew why. His gaze noted nothing but the black of slipspace.

_"What happened?"_ he asked as he reflexively grabbed his floating MA5C assault rifle and magnetized it on his back. He drifted towards the gap and looked out into slipspace.

_"I'm not sure."_ Cortana began.

_"When Halo fired, it shook itself to pieces. Did a number on the Ark. The portal couldn't sustain itself. We made it through, just as it collapsed. But somehow we're still in Slipspace."_

The AI paused.

_"Well ... some of us made it."_ She added with a hint of sorrow in her tone.

Master Chief looked around. He quietly sighed as he floated back into the interior of the ship. In a situation like this, there was really only one thing he could do.

_"But you did it."_ Cortana added as her Spartan floated towards the cryo-chamber, hoping to improve his apparently grumpy mood.

"Truth and the Covenant. The Flood. It's finished."

Finished… but not without cost. Not without many good men and women dying in many places for the last twenty-seven years in this war. Not without losing many friends. Not without the sacrifice of all his brothers and sisters. Gone. Vanished in the cruelty of war. But the war has ended, and Humanity had not only survived, but came out on top, so some solace was there to be found.

_"It's finished."_ Chief agreed.

He arrived in the cryo-chamber and floated up to an holo tank. He took out Cortana's chip and plugged her into the terminal, allowing her holographic image to appear. The two looked at one another and exchanged smiles. Somehow, Cortana always knew it when John was smiling, even though it was impossible to tell. He floated over to the weapons rack and shelved his rifle properly.

_"I don't know how to get out of here."_ Cortana said.

_"If we ever get out of here."_ Chief paused, then a nod to show acknowledgement. He climbed into the cryo-pod and settled in.

_"I'll miss you."_ Cortana added as the door began to close.

_"Wake me. When you need me."_Chief finished.

* * *

**Normandy SR-2, docked at fuelling station**

This one moment she had. This moment of peace. This moment of regeneration. Once she stepped out of this room, there would be only her work, her duty, her fate.

Sarah Shepard just stood in that room, her legs spread for solid stance, right arm outstretched, the hand lingering on the cold wall of the room. Her left hand buried in her wet hair, massaging her scalp. Emerald green eyes shut, her breathing as calm as it could get, she enjoyed one of her simplest, yet best moments on board her ship. A long, warm shower. She was able to feel her muscle's tension literally leaving her body, after another whole day full of problems, their solutions, brutal and unrelenting combat. Nevertheless, her mind found no ease, it wandered to the most important subject of the last months. Her crew. Are they ready for what was to come? Are they ready to strike against the Collector home world? Are they ready to die to stop servants of the Reapers, to just buy some time? Would she be ready for one, or even more of her friends to die? Her mind wandered. To dark places, places of fear, places of insecurity. But she had to wander these places in her only moment of peace. For when she walked out of the door, she would lock these thoughts away into the deepest places of her consciousness.

It was her way. It was the only way.

_"Enough time wasted, let's get back to it Sarah."_ she muttered to herself, while turning the shower off and taking a towel to dry herself.

Her auburn hair tied into a ponytail, a few streaks falling lazily into her face, fully clothed in her black and white Cerberus uniform, decorated with the groups orange emblem on her shoulder, she stepped out of her bathroom, leaving her quarters, making for the elevator.

_"Commander, the refuelling process will be finished in approximately three hours."_ EDI chimed in.

_"Would you please tell the team to gather in the conference room."_ Shepard requested.

_"Immediately. Informing the specialists, Commander."_ EDI replied.

_"Thank you, EDI, that would be all."_ the Commander said.

_"Logging you out, Commander."_

The elevator's door closed.

-~*0*~-

_"Listen up people."_ Sarah started. _"We have everything we need. Every single one of you is in top shape. The Normandy is bursting with weapon and armour upgrades. The Reaper IFF is being installed and calibrated right now. We are soon ready to strike."_

A chorus of enthusiastic mutters as sings of approval.

_"EDI, how fares the installation of the Reaper IFF?"_

_"The process of installing the Reaper IFF into the Normandy's systems is nearly complete, Commander."_ EDI informed.

_"Wonderful. Tali make sure you and EDI doublecheck the code again. Wouldn't want any problems from Reaper tech."_

_"Of course, Sarah."_ Tali began.

_"But we will have to stay docked at the station until calibrations are finished. It is likely we'll have to wait another solar day until we're ready."_ the quarian sighed.

_"No problem, Tali. Just make sure everything works correctly and safely."_ No hesitation.

_"I will."_

_"Good. Now onto the matter of the location of the Collector home world." _Sarah shaked her head in disbelief.

_"To those of you who don't know it until now. The home world of those bastards is near the galactic core on the accretion disk of a black hole. We still don't know what will happen if the IFF puts us through the relay. So expect everything, from black holes up to an army of motherfucking Reapers."_ she growled, then looked every one of her friends directly into their eyes. A nod from every one of them getting in return. A following short pause.

_"Hah! This will be fun."_ Grunt barked. They all cracked a laugh.

_"Damn right it will. Take the day off ladies and gents. Soon we'll fly into hell and back"._

* * *

_Author's notes:_

_Tell me your opinion of this chapter. Like it? Hate it? Why? Review, follow, favourite and look forward to the next chapter._

_Thanks,_  
_fjun_


	3. Somewhere

_Halo belongs to Bungie & 343. Mass Effect belongs to Bioware. Only this story is mine._

_Note: I changed the overall title of my story to just "Hope". Furthermore I changed the date/location titles of chapters 1 & 2. I made them less accurate to be able to create something like the following chapter._

_Enjoy!_

* * *

**Somewhere…**

Silence. She wasn't used to silence, though silence for her didn't mean not to talk, it meant not to think, not to calculate, not to process … not to be.

She was never meant to be silent, never will be. It went against every fibre of her body, or in her specific case, against the very core of her programming, her existence. For a third generation UNSC Artificial intelligence, four seconds of silence were equal to a whole lifetime of thoughts, for her, an AI capable of solving the most complex mathematic calculations in the skip of one heartbeat. An AI able to infiltrate, take over or sabotage every known security or military system may it be human, covenant of forerunner. An AI efficient enough to successfully combat the most sophisticated AIs, may those constructs be ONIs high-security AIs, Covenant security or naval AIs or even hundred thousand years old Forerunner entities, it would not matter. An AI with menacing knowledge from numerous forerunner Installations, with all the gruesome, horrific truths and details about the Flood and the Gravemind itself. The Gravemind… She, an AI who decided to stay behind in the dreadful arms of this very creature, to give humanity a chance for survival. Even in the face of torture and violation of her deepest and most hidden places of her mind.

She stayed.

Did her so called duty.

For her four seconds of silence were equal to a whole lifetime of thoughts. A painful lifetime. Not the same pain she experienced by the Gravemind, but a pain on another level of her being. She felt…

Helpless.

Lost.

Forgotten.

Alone.

All these were emotions she felt in those endless four seconds of just staring. Staring at the now closed door of the c in front of her. Staring through the glass window located on the forefront of said cryo-tube. Staring at the man, the soldier, her protector, her friend within. Staring at the Spartan. Staring at her Spartan,… John. Saviour of the humankind.

Alone.

There was nothing for her to do. Nothing to concentrate on. Her only activity was thinking, analysing data, trying to find a solution, a way out of here. A way to get out of slipspace, though without a slipspace engine this was nigh impossible. But still, she thought, analysed, searched. Her only thing to do.

But also her damnation.

Maybe not yet, nor the near future.

But ultimately, it is inevitable.

Death.

* * *

**Somewhere else…**

Her legs carried her along the pitch black walls of an enigmatic tunnel. She had no idea or memory how she ended up here, striding through this darkness. But she kept going. She had no hunch why some part of her consciousness urged her to put one leg in front of the other. Trying to find reason behind those mysterious motives of her mind just gave her a throbbing headache. So she pushed it out of her thoughts and kept going. But one thing she knew, she knew what lay before her, at the end of this frightening tunnel. It was an intense white, luminous kind of portal or a door or maybe something else entirely. She couldn't really tell, what she could tell, with absolute certainty, was that this fair shining orb marked her destination, her target, her goal and so she traversed through it. Nearly getting blinded.

For a short amount of time, there was only one thing filling her vision.

White...

Abruptly her vision cleared and only remnant white stars clouded her sight, bouncing up and down, dancing in unknown patters without any cause, apparently only to mock her.

So she found herself standing, ankle-deep inside turquoise salt water. Toes buried into the smooth sand of an adjacent, beautiful beach. Her gaze wandering, from the cement complex over to the nearby high towering, onyx rock cliff to her left, until it settled on the vast, gushing sea taking her entire right view. It was a gorgeous sight to look upon. White beach, fighting a constant territorial fight with the turquoise mixed with deep blue, which the ocean before her presented. High, sea-battered, onyx coloured cliffs surrounding the beach to her left, with spots of green, some flowers, even a few palms could be found alongside the beach. Gorgeous. Behind her she heard sand shifting under soft steps of an approaching person.

_"Hey Commander."_ Came murmured from her right, she didn't need to look upon the person for identification. She knew the person well.

_"How's it been going?"_ she was questioned, but knew not how to answer. She was sure if she would have raised her voice at that moment it would have cracked. She tried to regulate her breathing, slowly in, slowly out. But it didn't help. She only felt her emotions raging, like a massive hurricane, inside her.

_"That bad?"_ A sharp hiss escaped her lips. Her lungs filled with fresh, salty air, calming her raging thoughts somewhat. Still she felt sick, not in control. She had to turn toward the person and acknowledge the person's presence, look into those eyes and try to explain as best she could. Apologise for her actions, her failure. But she feared, no, knew she could not.

_"What's troubling you?"_ It would break her heart, shatter it into hundreds, thousands of pieces never to be collected and rebuild again. It would ruin her. She knew she could not answer the person beside her, not now, maybe never. She always thought about it, if she would have this very moment, with exactly that person, she'd knew down to the last word what to say. But now, she could not even think of one single word to say.

_"You know you can tell me everything, I can help you with your burdens."_ She could not even form one coherent thought, it was hard to even listen to those words spoken by the person standing beside her.

Without warning her right shoulder got yanked back, a body crashing into hers, sending her hard to the ground, landing on her back with a thud. Two strong hands seizing her neck, squeezing, cutting off her air supply, wounding her trachea. Her temple beginning to throb painfully as the person began to screech.

_"Tell me now! Lay your burdens on me. Let me carry your mistakes. Do as you did last time!"_ The person roared into her left ear, leaving a ringing sound. She felt her vision going dark, her consciousness fading away thru the lack of air. She could not answer, not that she would have, she still did not knew how to form her thoughts into words. She would not struggle because she knew it was not her right. So she lay helpless, her life leaving her body.

The person's eyes began to ablaze with a mischievous yellow. Skin and flesh began to decay, falling in chunks off the person's body and into the smooth, white sand besides her. Eyes melting down on decaying cheeks, more and more flesh separated itself, the shining white of bones becoming apparent.

With the last remaining ounce of life she managed to silently breathe out.

_"I'm sorry, Kaidan."_

* * *

**Somewhere later…**

Impossible. A word she, until now, had never deemed worthy of using. There had never been any obstacle impossible to overcome. No riddle which couldn't be solved. No firewall which couldn't be hacked. No problem without a solution. No question without an answer.

Until now.

One month of searching every bit of stored information inside her data core, yet there were no answers, not even a lead about the return of one single starships, which vanished over a longer or shorter time in slipspace.

A riddle without a solution.

The Forerunners had a far greater understanding of slipstream space, with the abilities to travel nearly instantaneously over galactic distances, to disrupt slipstream travel from normal space, to create bubbles of slipstream space, accelerating time, slowing time considerably inside while keeping the contents of the bubble visible in normal space, to store considerable mass and volume in slipstream space stably for thousands of years and potentially for all of time, and to transition matter from normal space to the inside of a construct in slipstream space without requiring the construct to transition back to normal-space. The same technology was utilized in slipspace Field Pods that were essentially a Forerunner equivalent of c, effectively preserving a living organism inside a slipspace field. In addition, the Forerunners had the ability to construct weapon systems that could fire into slipspace and affect targets in normal space or within slipspace.

But even they with all their technological marvels, highly advanced starships and scientist with immense knowledge about interstellar travel, did not solve every piece of this specific puzzle. Even they did not understand slipspace at its fullest. Even they did not know why or how spacevessels got adrift in slipspace.

There was nothing, absolutely nothing she could do. And it drove her mad. Until now there had always been a solution, an answer to all her questions. But now… not now, not this time. This time she could only watch helplessly.

Watch as they were at the mercy of slipspace.

Nothing could be done about it. No amout of searching, analysing or calculating would help them to get out of wherever they were.

She could hope. But for what? How was there hope, when even she could not find an answer nor a hint about where to look, about what to do. To what end should she hope, when there was none to be found.

She could pray. But what to? A god? Many gods? Maybe an AI god? Was there something like that? An AI god, waiting in an AI heaven, a sanctuary where they would all meet again after their end of time? Foolish thoughts.

So she began to shut non-critical parts of her programming core into standby mode, a sort of hibernation. Leaving only the most necessary parts active, those using the Dawn's external sensor arrays. Her eyes and ears.

After sending another emergency message out into slipspace, she did the only thing she could.

Wait.

* * *

**Somewhere else later…**

She awoke with a sudden start, suddenly sitting straight like a ramrod. Her body wet with sweat, her heart pounding wildly in her chest, an awful headache creeping its way inside her head.

_"Nothing better than a nice round of sleep."_ Shepard sighed.

Wiping with her hand over her brows, cleaning some sweaty moisture away, she climbed out of her bed stretching her arms over her head, stifling a yawn.

Nightmares. They come and go in a life a woman like her lives. She was just glad that she could not remember this one, must have been pretty bad, due to the amount of sweat covering her body. It was much better that way, she didn't have to think about it, for she knew not what the dream was about, she only knew she had had a nightmare. Sarah preferred it that way. Much easier. Less complicated.

Though she could really ask Chakwas for those knock-out pills. Uninterrupted sleep, longer than three up to five and a half hours would, for a change, be very welcome.

Hitting the orange glowing panel on the right side of the stairs, triggering to open the fish-feeder, she continued onwards to her space hamster's cage refilling the food bowl. Turning right, she opened the door to her bathroom, vanishing inside.

Twenty-seven minutes of relaxing followed. Afterwards, twelve minutes of making ready.

_"Guess there is something better than a nice round of sleep." _She commented, whilst a short smile appeared on her face.

Stepping out into her cabin again, she studied the newest addition to her room's décor, an asari-made digital clock, sitting on her work-desk, displaying the current solar time.

4:03

_'Not many faces going to be out there, only the skeleton crew in the CIC.'_ she concluded.

With that thought she headed for the elevator, her destination certain.

-~'*0*'~-

Exiting the elevator, Sarah turned right and strode towards the bulkhead at the end of the corridor. Just before she would have inevitably bumped into said door, the panel centrally projected over the door turned from glowing orange to approving green. The bulkhead granting her passage, she stepped as silently able, at least for her, into Kasumi's quarters. Sarah was slightly taken aback after she realized Kasumi wasn't in her room. Most likely she was out snatching one thing or another, giving it back the next day or was stalking after Jacob again or whatever it was Kasumi did at this time of the ship's cycle outside of her homy room. Sarah didn't know exactly and probably wouldn't want to.

Overcoming her confusion about Kasumi's absence and realizing she was by now standing quite some time in the doorway, she finally entered the quarter. Again opting to turn right, she strolled towards the bar. Quickly looking over the assembled collection of human and alien alcohol, she chose a common whiskey, back from earth. Walking around the bar, grabbing the bottle and a fitting glass she poured herself a small drink. Putting the bottle back to it's quiet resting place, Shepard turned grabbing her whiskey filled glass, bringing it up to her lips. As the first drop of the cold liquor touched her dry throat she closed her eyes, relishing the following, warm, burning sensation.

_"Really Shep?"_ Startled, she spit out those few drops of alcohol which had already touched her throat, beginning to cough heavily.

_"Ka..."_ More coughing.

_"Tell me Shep. Do you always sneak into people's living rooms while they themselfes are out?"_ the small thief interrogated Shepard, a big smile on her face.

_"Kasu..."_ Coughing again. The burning wouldn't go away. It hurt.

_"And I though, lonely me was the only one sneaking around our lovely ship."_ She pouted. _"You could have told me, we could have enjoyed our nightly trips together. Finally some girl-time between us two. Hmm?_"

Steadying herself, Shepard finally got her throat reasonably under control, clearing her burning throat one final time, she concluded that she might even be able to talk again.

_"Kasumi."_ Sarah began while breathing deeply out. _"Never. Do. That. Again."_ A ragged breath being taken in.

_"What do you mean, Shep?"_ Kasumi retorted, all along hopelessly trying to prevent a big grin forming on her lips. _"Coming to my own room? Reading an old fashioned book? Trying to get some sleep? I have absolutely no idea what you mead, Shep, honestly. So what brings you here?"_

_"This."_ Shepard, holding up her near empty glass in her left, pointing her right indexfinger at it.

_"Other than your nice little whisky, which is by the way on my floor."_ replied the enigmatic thief.

_"Can't sleep."_

_"Bad dreams?"_

_"Something like that."_ The Commander shrugged.

_"You should read a nice book, or go snatch some things before sleep. Always helps me sleep like a baby."_ Kasumi answered grinning playfully.

_"When do you even sleep?"_

_"When I'm tired. If you want to change topic, Shep, you can do far better than this."_ she stated while putting a hand on her hip, the other left dangling at her side.

_"Hm. Well, I don't really remember what the dream was about, just know that I woke up soaked. It's not really bad, just couldn't sleep any longer, so I strolled down here to relax somewhat. With my drink, you know, but that particular date got interrupted by someone."_ Shepard said, arms crossed infront of her chest, her tongue sticking out at Kasumi.

_"Rude. But now that I'm here you don't have to talk to your glass."_ she chuckled.

Sarah moved back to the whiskey's resting place, retaking the bottle, snatching another glass from the shelf. Putting it down on the counter, she opened the bottle again pouring both women a suitable amount of liquor into their respective glasses. Shoving Kasumi's in her direction Shepard seized her drink, sipping at it. The smaller women did the same.

They both fell in a welcomed silence, each of them absorbed in their thoughts. Several minutes past, both women staring at nothing specific, occasionally sipping their drinks. The redheaded Commander blinked one time, then she looked up, her eyes fixing on Kasumi.

_"You ever regret coming aboard, Kasumi?"_ Putting her empty glass back on the counter, Shepard inquired.

_"Yeah. At first. Especially when I met Jack."_ Kasumi responded, beginning to nibble at her lower lip, appearing deep in thought again.

_"But now, no, I do not. So many nice people here and so much fun. And... mhmmm..."_ She zoned out. Longer this time.

_"Kasumi?"_

_"That Jacob."_ She muttered out slowly, rolling every syllable on her tounge. A short pause. She pondered on what to say next.

_"Have you seen him train? Hmmhmm. Do you want to see some nice vids, Shep?"_

_"Yeah, I'll go now Kasumi. Nice talk."_ she groaned, heading for the door.

_"See'ya."_ followed as cheeky reply.

* * *

_Author's notes:_

_Tell me your opinion about this chapter. Would you like the more precisely titles back or do you like the new ones too?_

_How did you like the Kasumi/Shepard conversation? I, myself, think that I'm not really good at writing them._

_Like it? Hate it? Why? Review, follow, favourite and look forward to the next chapter._

_Thanks,_  
_fjun_


End file.
